“Stella had a very good friend in you, Mr. Thresk.  I am sure she still has one,” and without waiting for any answer he went upstairs.  His bedroom was near to the front in the side of the house.  It commanded a view of the meadow and the cottage and he rejoiced to see that all Stella’s windows were dark.  The library was out of sight round the corner at the back, but a glare of light from the open door spread out over the lawn.  Hazlewood looked at his watch.  It was just midnight.  He went to bed and slept.

In the library Thresk strove to concentrate his thoughts upon his brief.  But he could not, and he threw it aside at last.  There was a letter to be written, and until it was written and done with his thoughts would not be free.  He went over to the writing-table and wrote it.  But it took a long while in the composition and the clock upon the top of the stable was striking one when at last he had finished and sealed it up.

“I’ll post it in the morning at the station,” he resolved, and he went to the window to close it.  But as he touched it a slight figure wrapped in a dark cloak came out of the darkness at the side and stepped past him into the room.  He swung round and saw Stella Ballantyne.

“You!” he exclaimed.  “You must be mad.”

“I had to come,” she said, standing well away from the window in the centre of the room as though she thought he would drive her out.  “I heard you say you would be sitting late here.”

“How long have you been waiting out there?”

“A little while...I don’t know...Not very long.  I wasn’t sure that you were alone.”

Thresk closed the window and drew the curtain across it.  Then he crossed the room and locked the doors leading into the dining-room and hall.

“There was no need for you to come,” he said in a low voice.  “I have written to you.”

“Yes.”  She nodded her head.  “That’s why I had to come.  This afternoon you spoke of leaving your pipe behind.  I understood,” and as he drew the letter from his pocket she recoiled from it.  “No, it has never been written.  I came in time to prevent its being written.  You only had an idea of writing.  Say that!  You are my friend.”  She took the letter from him now and tore it across and again across.  “See!  It has never been written at all.”

But Thresk only shook his head.  “I am very sorry.  I see to-night the stricken woman of the tent in Chitipur.  I am very sorry,” and Stella caught at the commiseration in his voice.  She dropped the cloak from her shoulders; she was dressed as she had been at the dinner some hours before, but all her radiance had gone, her cheeks trembled, her eyes pleaded desperately.

“Sorry!  I knew you would be.  You are not hard.  You couldn’t be.  You must come close day by day in your life to so much that is pitiful.  One can talk to you and you’ll understand.  This is my first chance, the first real chance I have ever had, Henry, the very first.”